“I think you’ll enjoy your stay here. I need to rejoin the other members of the Council for our reservation.” Erebus clasps his hands at his waist, giving me time to respond.

I swallow around a dry tongue. “What are you going to do to me now?”

His sigh is one of disappointment. “Nothing tonight.” He looks down at me, red eyes like a heat lamp on my skin. “I will return for you in several days’ time once the others are gone so that you and I may begin our work together, uninterrupted by unscientific minds.”

Our work. Scientific. Whatever he has planned, with those words I know it will be invasive. Not work, torture. My throat closes. All I can manage is a nod.

“You are very brave, Briana.” Erebus studies me like a Merlin, watching the effort it takes to hold my tears back, listening to the sounds of me barely holding myself together. Even if I convinced the others that I chose to stay here, they can’t expect me to not be frightened at being alone. “That will serve you well in the time to come.” He closes the door behind me without another word. I hear the mechanism lock and assume the aether barrier went up as well.

I am used to Merlins’ silent departures by now. I listen for the ding of the elevator to know that he’s really gone.

Then, all at once, the strain of the past hour spills from my mouth in a low, long whine. My hands shake from adrenaline and tension and fear.

After a moment, I turn to inspect the door itself. There is no knob on the inside, and the solid wood surface sits flush against the doorjamb, surrounded by a crack so narrow I doubt I could slip a sheet of paper through.

Set in the wall to the right of the door is a small opening with a metal frame and plastic flap. I lift the flap up to see a covered tray of food, identical to the one by my bed this morning. When I yank the tray out to examine the opening, the cover snaps off, spilling the sandwich and salad in the process. It’s no hope: the passage is just tall enough to fit a tray and nothing more, and I cannot reach through to the other side.

I dash to the single window near the bed—and see bars. No escape here, either.

A gilded cage.

They plan to keep me here for a long, long time. Maybe forever. Or as long as the experiments entertain them.

I squeeze my hands into a fist, but the strength of Arthur feels very far away, lost in that hollow space. With it, I could have pulled the bars back, but then there are the Mageguard outside. Even if I could break out, they’d hear me, and then I would be in worse shape.

I am buried.